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Food Imagery In Literature

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Introduction Food is vital for human existence and it holds an integral part in the daily discourse and language expressions of people all over the world. In other words, food reflects the intricate web of life, experience and cultural patterns inherent any society. Most of us somehow understand food metaphors or culinary expressions used in normal communications. However, a close analysis of these food expressions in different cultural contexts reveals a different paradigm altogether. The cultural difference in beliefs, availability of food items as well as its preparation and consumption give rise to peculiar food expressions in every community. The special connotations inherent in those food imageries later may become …show more content…

Abstract conceptions become more tangible through food expressions as Delmer Deavis(1997) suggests in ' Food as literary Theme ', "The centrality of food to human expressions and to personal and cultural identity is mirrored in the food preoccupations of literature." The study of food imagery in literature had not been given proper attention until recently. Food studies have often been the sole preoccupation of Anthropologists and Sociologists or Historians. Study of food imagery is gaining recognition by the literary scholars, theorists and cultural theorists as a means to understand the characters, actions, hidden motives, symbols and cultural identities used in literature. Roland Barthes was one of the first literary and cultural theorists to explore the semantics of food. "It is not only a collection of products that can be used for statistical or institutional studies. It is also, and at the same time a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations and behavior". Food studies are rapidly developing and it has generated many themes related to food such as eating disorders or cultural diversities of food (scholliers 7) into the academic field. So, many aspects of food and the ideology behind it are investigated in diverse fields such as medicine, nutrition, sociology, anthropology, …show more content…

Conceptual prepositions to build mental modals Behavioral or socio-economic orientations are necessary to retrieve knowledge fields for they certainly give more meaning to the food metaphors or any other kind of metaphors. What is needed is not a formal linguistic analysis instead of a propositional text analysis. This provides a link between linguistic and conceptual metaphor. The cognitive-psychological quality of the suggestion for build mental models is beneficial here. The mental models and concepts help to opens up wider knowledge schemes. In other words, other concepts along with the literal concepts, build a clear complete mental mapping between the literally and metaphorically used concepts in the creative work. For example the concept of making pickle in God of Small things attribute a complete mixing up in which the information about the preparation, purpose, origin, style, quality, grade etc of pickle making are conjured up for building new knowledge

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